Privacy Statement: Information about pupils in schools and children in early years settings

Privacy Statement: Information about pupils in schools and children in early years settings

The Data Protection Act (1998) and General Data Protection Regulation (2016):

Why do we collect and use pupil information?

We collect and hold personal information relating to our pupils and may also receive information about them from their previous school, local authority and/or the Department for Education (DfE). We use this personal data to:

The categories of pupil information that we collect, hold and share include:

Collecting pupil information

Whilst the majority of pupil information you provide to us is mandatory, some of it is provided to us on a voluntary basis. In order to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation, we will inform you whether you are required to provide certain pupil information to us or if you have a choice in this.

We will not give information about our pupils to anyone without your consent unless the law and our policies allow us to do so.

Storing pupil data

We hold pupil data for the duration of their time at Eversley, and will pass on this information to other schools when they transfer. Some data is held for the purposes of comparison and to enable the school to perform its statutory duties. The length of time that data is held is in accordance with the school’s Retention Schedule.

Who do we share pupil information with?

We routinely share pupil information with other schools, when pupils transfer to a new a school.

We are required, by law, to pass certain information about our pupils to our local authority (LA) and the Department for Education (DfE).

DfE may also share pupil level personal data that we supply to them, with third parties. This will only take place where legislation allows it to do so and it is in compliance with the Data Protection Act 1998.

Decisions on whether DfE releases this personal data to third parties are subject to a robust approval process and are based on a detailed assessment of who is requesting the data, the purpose for which it is required, the level and sensitivity of data requested and the arrangements in place to store and handle the data. To be granted access to pupil level data, requestors must comply with strict terms and conditions covering the confidentiality and handling of data, security arrangements and retention and use of the data.

For more information on how this sharing process works, please visit: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/national-pupil-database-apply-for-a-data-extract

For information on which third party organisations (and for which project) pupil level data has been provided to, please visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-pupil-database-requests-received
Where we as a school share pupil data with external agencies, we will inform parents before doing so, allowing parents to opt out should they wish.

The National Pupil Database (NPD)

The NPD is owned and managed by the Department for Education and contains information about pupils in schools in England. It provides invaluable evidence on educational performance to inform independent research, as well as studies commissioned by the Department. It is held in electronic format for statistical purposes. This information is securely collected from a range of sources including schools, local authorities and awarding bodies.

We are required by law, to provide information about our pupils to the DfE as part of statutory data collections such as the school census and early years’ census. Some of this information is then stored in the NPD. The law that allows this is the Education (Information About Individual Pupils) (England) Regulations 2013.

To find out more about the pupil information we share with the department, for the purpose of data collections, go to https://www.gov.uk/education/data-collection-and-censuses-for-schools.

To find out more about the NPD, go to https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-pupil-database-user-guide-and-supporting-information.

The department may share information about our pupils from the NPD with third parties who promote the education or well-being of children in England by:

The Department has robust processes in place to ensure the confidentiality of our data is maintained and there are stringent controls in place regarding access and use of the data. Decisions on whether DfE releases data to third parties are subject to a strict approval process and based on a detailed assessment of:

To be granted access to pupil information, organisations must comply with strict terms and conditions covering the confidentiality and handling of the data, security arrangements and retention and use of the data.

For more information about the department’s data sharing process, please visit:
https://www.gov.uk/data-protection-how-we-collect-and-share-research-data

For information about which organisations the department has provided pupil information, (and for which project), please visit the following website: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-pupil-database-requests-received

To contact DfE: https://www.gov.uk/contact-dfe

Requesting access to your personal data

Under data protection legislation, parents and pupils have the right to request access to information about them that we hold. To make a request for your personal information, or be given access to your child’s educational record, contact Mr J Hancock, Information Champion, via the School Office – admin@eversley.essex.sch.uk or 01268 555333

You also have the right to:

If you have a concern about the way we are collecting or using your personal data, you should raise your concern with us in the first instance or directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/

If you need more information about how our local authority and/or DfE collect and use your information, please visit:

Contact:

If you would like to discuss anything in this privacy notice, please contact the School Office.

If you wish to contact our Data Protection Officer, please contact Lauri Almond, Essex County Council on 03330 322970 or DPO@essex.gov.uk